Asking for Feedback from Your Programs

Receiving feedback about a guest lecturer, new program, or trip to Israel is crucial to your success. After all, you are interested in reaching people and offering timely and relevant programming. Likewise, you can use such a form to even ask how successful your marketing was and where a person first heard about the trip or event.

Many organizations opt to retrieve this data from questionnaires that were filled out anonymously. The assumption is that people will feel comfortable answering honestly if they can hide their identity. However, it’s worth noting that in a new analysis, Yphtach Lelkes and his colleagues point out that anonymity comes with a price. In fact, participants will actually feel less responsible and may be less motivated to answer questions accurately!

The next time you hand out a form looking for feedback consider asking people to write their name. You may have fewer people filling out your feedback form. On the other hand, you will have replies from people who from the first to the last question knew that they were accountable for their answers. Likewise, you may consider dropping the anonymous form in exchange for deciding to spend a couple of minutes speaking face-to-face with a couple of targeted people who attended the program, shabbaton or trip.